Each week from now through the October launch of Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare will be introducing us to the characters, places, and creatures that we’ll encounter as we traverse the land of Ferelden. With each installment, GameNorth will act as your faithful guide as we help introduce you to the dark and brutal world of Dragon Age: Origins.
In this week’s installment, we will venture into the Dwarven realm of Orzammar. Used as a starting point for players that choose the role of a Dwarven Noble or a Dwarven Commoner, Orzammar is a city of stone that harbors many mysteries. To the eyes of an outsider, Orzammar is labyrinth, a maze of stone where discovery, reward, and treachery lurk around every corner.
The Land of Orzammar
History tells us that the Dwarven kingdoms once spread across all of Thedas, and that the underground city-fortresses called thaigs were almost beyond counting. Kal-Sharok was the capital then, home to all the noble houses, and Orzammar was simply the home of the miner and smith castes. Upon encountering this ancient city, many are struck in awe by the sight of the great city of stone. Orzammar stands within a vast cavern, poised over a sea of molten lava. There, the sounds of the forges ring loudest as the finest smiths craft works that are the envy of all races. Countless thaigs were lost in the first Blight, when the darkspawn poured out of the Deep Roads of Orzammar like smoke. With each generation, due to the threat of the darkspawn, more of the Deep Roads have had to be sealed and more thaigs are lost forever. Now only Orzammar stands – the last bastion of the dwarven race and its finest creation.
Richard Mitchell is a video game addict living in Toronto. He has been gaming for more than two decades, and despite multiple interventions, continues to game today. He has an Xbox 360, a PS3, a Wii, a Nintendo DS, a gaming PC, and a life, and does his best to juggle them all. 